


Amends

by leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)



Series: The Things You Know [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes-centric, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Hydra (Marvel), M/M, Not Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Compliant, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, POV Bucky Barnes, Pre-Relationship, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, pre-war (briefly)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-09
Updated: 2016-04-09
Packaged: 2018-06-01 04:46:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6501352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Monkeygreen/pseuds/leveragehunters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are certain things that Bucky knows, right up until they are torn away from him. When he remembers who he is, he strives to make amends before he finds his way back to Steve.  </p><p>  <i>Bucky would not return to Steven Grant Rogers with so much blood on his hands. Not without trying to make amends. He knew no one could ever make amends for that much blood.</i> </p><p>  <i>But he would try. </i> </p><p>Set (briefly) pre-war to post-Winter Soldier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amends

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel to _No Such Thing as Fighting Dirty_. Only the first little bit is written in second person.

_Here are the things you know:_

Your name is James Buchanan Barnes and you love your mom but she gave you the dumbest name on the planet.

You are thirteen and your name is _Bucky_ and you love Steven Grant Rogers, who may be the dumbest _kid_ on the planet.  You spend more time pulling him out of back alley fights than you spend breathing and it's not like the scrawny little numbskull doesn't have enough problems without piling a broken nose on top of everything else.

You are fourteen and it's winter and Steve is so cold, so pale, and you wrap yourself around him at nights, innocent and chaste, scared he's going to die, determined to shield him from his own body's weakness. You'll punch death right in the face if you have to.

 

***                            *                               ***

 

_Here are the things you know:_

You are seventeen and you're _in love_ with Steven Grant Rogers, dizzy with it, and you're afraid. But his defiance, his pigheaded stubbornness, has seeped into your bones, and you can't make yourself keep quiet. Even if he'll hate you. Even if he turns that back-alley anger on you.

You are seventeen and you're an idiot. You know, because Steve told you. Repeatedly. You never need to be afraid of Steve, of your Stevie, who loves you in every way one person can love another (even if he thinks you’re an idiot).

You are seventeen and when you wrap yourselves around each other it is far from innocent and far from chaste, but you will still protect him.

Always.

 

***                            *                               ***

 

_Here are the things you know:_

You are Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, serial number 32557038. You are Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, serial number 32557038. You don't know what's been done to you but you know you will not leave this place alive. And maybe that's for the best because the things that evil little bastard Zola's been doing, they ain't natural and they ain't right.

You are Bucky and your Steve used to be smaller but here he is, where he sure as shit shouldn't be. This is no place for him, even if he is somehow the size of a damned house. But he won't leave you and you won't leave him, because you're both as stupid as each other.  

 

***                            *                               ***

 

_Here are the things you know:_

It's not strong enough. It won't hold you. Steve can't reach you. You are falling.  Death is waiting for you at the end and you're grateful.  You'll only have to live with the look on his face as he reached for you and failed for another few seconds. You want to scream it back at him as you fall _not your fault not your fault not your fault_.

Here are the things you know: You are not dead. You cannot fight. There is no escape.

Here are the things you know: Your body no longer belongs to you.

Here are the things.

You are a thing.

The Thing exists.

The Thing kills and kills and it does not hesitate because that is its only purpose. It is a weapon in the hands of those who wield it and it does not think.  It does not know. It does not question.

It is compliant.

There is pain and terror regardless of compliance but compliance lessens them. Makes them predictable.  And if unknown bubbles of memory occasionally rise to the surface, waking a cacophony in the Thing's brain, they are quickly dealt with by those to whom the Thing belongs.

Until the man on the bridge. The Thing knows him when the Thing does not know anyone and it cannot keep silent, as if there is someone else inside the Thing who demands to be heard.

The Thing pays and pays and pays. It is rendered once more compliant.

Until _Bucky_.

Until _Your name is James Buchanan Barnes._

Until _You're my friend_.

Until _I'm with you 'til the end of the line._

Steven Grant Rogers fell from the Helicarrier and Bucky-who-was rose up through the twisted wreckage of their programming and leapt to follow, pulling him to safety.

 

***                            *                               ***

 

Bucky went to ground, hiding deep in a storm drain.  He had to bite down on his hand to keep silent as memories slammed into him, Bucky-who-was reasserting himself, sliding into place in the gaping holes torn in his mind. It hurt. Blood dripped from his hand but he didn't make a sound. He could not be found.  He would not be taken. By anyone.

Once darkness fell, he broke into a clinic, disabling the alarm, used their supplies to administer the necessary care to keep himself running, and stole food, clothes and money from the staff room.  He also used the computer.  He'd have been able to crack the password, but since it was helpfully written on a yellow note stuck on the edge of the monitor it wasn't necessary.

 _James Buchanan Barnes_.  Bucky typed the three words into a search engine.

It was almost dawn when he left the clinic, hat pulled low over his face. The Smithsonian was his next stop and Bucky held the man in the museum up against the tatters of what he was now.   It woke rage.  Rage for Bucky-who-was. Rage at those who had made him into the Thing. Rage at what they had used him to do.  Rage, formless rage, locked behind blank eyes.

Days passed and he wandered the city, sleeping rough, one more invisible homeless man among other invisible homeless men. Long sleeves covered his metal arm, a glove his metal fingers, and no one gave him a second look. When nightmares ripped him screaming awake, no one spoke to him, just kept their wary distance.

He could never make up for the things he had done. To strangers, to the world, to Steven Grant Rogers. Was it true that he _had shaped the century_? Those words, the one who'd said them, woke terror and nausea and hatred. But if it was true.

If it was true.

He could never make amends.

He could never return to Steven Grant Rogers with hands that soaked in blood.

But he remembered _You are my friend_ and _With you 'til the end of the line_ and older memories vied with new ones all clamouring for his attention to tell him that yes, Bucky _damn well could_.

Bucky _would not_ return to Steven Grant Rogers with so much blood on his hands. Not without trying to make amends. He knew no one could ever make amends for that much blood.

But he would try.

 

***                            *                               ***

 

It would be hard for him to leave the country.  Even travelling _across_ the country, in this era of paranoia and security theatre, was difficult enough. The knowledge that he might have helped bring it about was bitter ash in his mouth. 

But HYDRA was still here in the US, burrowed in deep like ticks on a dog. Bucky knew where to find them, the small cells, the lesser groups, the ones who would think they were safe in the wake of such spectacular destruction. They would be hunkering down and waiting for the worst to blow over so they could begin again.

He would fight back. He would begin to make amends. He would take the weapon they had created and turn himself against them.  What Bucky wanted was to slaughter them all, to hunt them down one by one and kill them. Slow, fast, he didn't care. He wanted them to die.

 _Can't wash blood away with blood_ , some part of him whispered. Can't make up for decades of killing and destruction with more killing and destruction, no matter how carefully targeted. So he would kill if he had to, otherwise he would neutralise and notify, use relays that could never be traced, let the alphabet agencies squabble over sucking up the last of HYDRA and they'd never know who was clearing out the vipers in their backyard.

What Bucky had not realised as he made his plans and set them into motion was how close he would come to failure, how deep HYDRA's claws were still sunk inside him.

His first target was a nondescript warehouse on the very outskirts of Colorado Springs. Bucky went in through the roof, dropping down lightly to land on top of a pile of wooden shipping crates. The interior was a maze, crates stacked in apparently haphazard patterns, but in reality creating clear lines of sight and kill zones. He began working his way through the warehouse, neutralising methodically and cleanly. Until he came face to face with two HYDRA agents who were not strangers. They had both worked with the Thing.

Bucky knew their faces and they recognised his. He managed to draw a gun before his hand froze even as his mind was screaming at it to pull the trigger.  His body remembered the cost of non-compliance; it remembered paying the price to these two. It would not move.

When they'd seen him, the two men had momentarily panicked, flinching away, but as Bucky froze, their knowledge of the universe and their place in it reasserted itself. They were once more confident.  They knew the Thing and the Thing was compliant.

Everything Bucky was fighting for might have ended right there if one hadn't reached out and grabbed him.  Hadn't wrapped insolent fingers around Bucky's right arm and squeezed. 

The touch sparked off a firestorm of rage.  Touch meant pain. Touch meant terror. He had not been permitted to fight back, fighting back had meant more pain, more terror, an endless feedback loop. The only end had been to be passive and still and accept it.

But that was then and this was now.

The world went white.

When Bucky came back there was no one left alive. No one had died clean.

Half an hour and he had everything of worth from their computers. A few minutes more and he'd set a slow fuse that would see the warehouse burnt to the ground.

Bucky ranged across the country, tearing down the remnants of HYDRA. He was careful, deaths were few, and there was never a repeat of that first target. But he never forgot that he couldn't entirely trust his body.

In his twisted, gory dreams he imagined that, somewhere, somehow, the people he'd killed when he was not-Bucky, the ones who'd died fast and the ones who'd died slow and bloody, could know what he was doing. 

He knew they wouldn’t forgive him but he hoped it might help them find peace.

 

***                            *                               ***

 

He knew he was being tracked as he ground the remnants of HYDRA into dust and ashes. It was Steven Grant Rogers, but he wasn't alone.  Sam Wilson, the winged man from the Helicarrier, was with him. Knowing Steve was following woke complicated emotions.  Bucky didn't know if he was being followed because he was a danger to be stopped, an enemy to be ended, a friend to be found or some combination of all three. But as time went on and it remained only Steve and Sam, he suspected it was neither of the first two.

Thinking of Steve triggered an odd mix of joy and pain. The memories he had were jumbled and out of order, Steve going from small to big and back again. Throughout them all, Bucky was his protector, even as Steve claimed not to need one—Bucky remembered _I had him on the ropes_ —but it was strung through Bucky's bones and his soul that it was his job. Protect Steve.  It clashed with the memory of fighting Steve, almost killing Steve, made him dizzy until he shook them off and shoved them down, locking them away to deal with _after_.

 _After_ he finished this. _After_ he could go to Steve. If he could get there it would take the rest of his life to make amends, but first he had to get there.

Which was why he had to stay ahead of Steve and Sam until he was finished.

Sam was his own kind of problematic, and Bucky tried not to think about him. Because he remembered, remembered ripping off his wing and kicking him over the edge to die. He was problematic because destroying HYDRA would do nothing to make amends for that and there was no complicated cocktail of memories telling him he would be given time for something else.

Bucky was smart enough, trained enough, to stay ahead of them. Six months in, they were getting too close and he wasn't near finished, so he laid a false trail to send them out of the country and used the time to regroup, reassess, resupply.  

Regardless of the Sam problem, Bucky was grateful Steve had him, because the other thing his memories of Steve had in common was the certainty that Steve should not be allowed out on his own. Because Steve would run heedless and unthinking into danger. Like an idiot.

 

***                            *                               ***

 

It was almost over.

Bucky stopped being so careful. He let Steve and Sam get closer.

When he entered the last nest to subdue the last servants of HYDRA in the US, he knew that they'd be waiting when he came out.  He'd calculated he'd have enough time to finish what he'd come to do before they caught up and he'd been right, because here they were. 

This final nest was in a decommissioned park ranger's cabin, not too deep in the woods, the tunnel in the kitchen that led to a series of underground rooms not part of the original design. As he exited the cabin the only sounds were the crunch of leaves underfoot and the distant sound of birds.

Bucky stood at the bottom of the cabin's steps, arms loose at his sides, and watched them approach. 

Steven Grant Rogers, no uniform, no shield, no weapons, and Bucky's eyes narrowed in disapproval because _what the hell_. Sam Wilson, armed— _good_ —gun out— _good_ —not pointed at Bucky, which was not good, but he at least looked ready to use it if necessary. 

Steve and Sam exchanged a glance, Sam dropping back, as Steve took a cautious step forward, stopping well outside of Bucky's reach. "Bucky?" he asked.

Bucky had done all he could do with what he had, though nowhere near what was needed. He was ready for whatever came next. "It's me." Honesty forced him to add, because his brain was a hive of wasps even on a good day, "Pretty much me."

The radiant smile just about blinded him.  "That's good to hear, Buck. Really good."

Glancing past Steve, Bucky could see Sam's expression. Neutral as it was, there was doubt lurking in his eyes. Bucky was glad to see it. He didn't trust _himself_ , not entirely. He wouldn't willingly hurt Steve, or Sam, but sometimes his body had its own ideas about what was going to happen and when the world went white he wasn't going to be in the driver's seat.  It was good to know someone else was going to be on board with not trusting Bucky.  Someone who was smart enough to have a damned gun.

Bucky didn't know what happened now. He thought he knew what he wanted to happen. He thought maybe he'd done enough that he could go to Steve, but what came next was a mystery, a foggy haze he couldn't see past.

He'd been silent for too long, he knew. Sam and Steve were looking at each other again, complicated communication going on, though Sam never quite took his eyes off Bucky.  

Sam was a problem. He had nothing to offer Sam.  He had to come up with something.  "You could hurt me," he finally said, looking straight at Sam, ignoring Steve's sharp, indrawn breath. "I won't stop you." Bucky looked down at his body, assessing. "You could shoot me, or stab me." Both would hurt, would be hard to deal with, but he'd heal. "Or break something." Which would be more satisfying, but Bucky doubted Sam would want to get that close to him and he wasn't entirely sure he could control himself.  He looked up. "But that's probably a bad idea."

They were both staring at him with mingled confusion and something like horror. "To make up for what I did to you," Bucky patiently explained to Sam. "Start making up for it."

"That." Sam stopped, seemed to be gathering his thoughts. "That is really not necessary."

"No, it is," he replied, trying to find the words. It made perfect sense in his head but judging by the looks on both Sam and Steve's faces they didn't agree.  "Can't go to you unless I start making up for what I did," he said to Steve. He shifted his focus back to Sam. "I don't have anything else."

As Bucky watched, Sam and Steve exchanged a speaking look, held an entire conversation he couldn't follow, and Sam sighed, some of the tension leaving his spine, and holstered his gun. Which Bucky thought was a bad idea.  No one from HYDRA was a danger, Bucky had sealed them all behind the tunnel, but there was still _him_. "Right, well let's say that whatever we work out it's not going to involve me _hurting you_ and leave it at that for the moment, okay?"

It wasn't exactly okay, but Steve had taken another step closer and he looked so hopeful Bucky found he couldn’t do anything but nod.

"Is that why you've been doing this, taking down HYDRA?" Steve asked.

"Couldn't come to you without doing something to make up for it. Couldn't let them take me back and start again." The expression that passed over Bucky's face was not a smile, just a ghost of something that might once have been. "Too dangerous for that. Couldn't let you catch up to me until I was done." Bucky waved a hand at the cabin behind him.  "This is the last of them, at least here. No more in the US that I could find. I figure it's at least a start."

"Bucky." Steve's expression was sad but his tone was firm. "It wasn't your fault. What they made you do, none of it was your choice." He hesitated, weighing up whether to continue. When he did, there was an undercurrent of anger he was working hard to keep out of his voice. Bucky could hear it. "A friend, she got me the files. On you. On what they did. I've read them. I know what they did to you. No one could have held out against them."

Bucky looked at him blankly. Steve had the files. Steve knew what had been done to him. Part of him wanted to demand to know everything Steve knew. Another part, the larger part, just wanted to hide. "You have the files."

"I do. And that's why I know, _I know_ , you weren't responsible. For any of it."

Silence descended, the only noise the sound of the forest, rustling leaves and somewhere in the distance the birds were singing. 

"Maybe," Bucky finally said, low and uncertain. "And maybe none of that matters. It was still my hands." Bucky stretched them, watching the glints of light reflecting off the fingers of his metal hand. "I still remember. Someone's got to make amends." He looked up to meet Steve's eyes. "Not like there's anyone else to do it."  

Bucky could see Steve wanting to argue with him, could recognise—could _remember_ —the signs, the tilt of his head, the set of his jaw, the look in his eyes, and the remembering nearly knocked him breathless. But he could also see Steve deliberately set it aside, letting it go, and he was grateful. "And you left them alive in there?" Steve nodded at the cabin. "Like the rest?"

Bucky nodded. They were all alive. Some of them probably wished they weren't, but they were all alive. "Haven't called it in yet."

Carefully, like a man picking his way across a minefield, Steve asked, "Is there a reason you haven't been killing them?"

"Can't wash away blood with blood." Bucky's voice was soft and he gave his answer to Steve like an offering.

Steve let out a huge breath and ran his hand through his hair, glancing over his shoulder at Sam. Sam raised his eyebrows at Steve, then nodded once, head tipping sideways.  Steve turned back to Bucky.  "We can call this in on our way out," he offered. "We've got a car, parked down by the lake. It's about half an hour to the air field and we've got access to a private plane that'll take us to New York. I'd like you to come back with me, if you're ready. "   

Bucky had to say, "I'm ready." It was a lie, a huge, massive lie, because he wasn't ready, but it was a lie he wanted to be true, as much as Steve wanted him to say it was true, so he'd deal with it. If he didn't, he would never be ready. "Wait." If he was going to travel with them Steve needed a weapon. "First, you have to—." Bucky pulled out a gun. Sam instantly pulled his, pointing it unwaveringly at Bucky.  

Steve's, "Sam, don't," was ignored and Bucky, feeling a wave of approval for Sam, carefully stretched his arm out and flipped the gun so he was holding it by the barrel, grip pointing at Steve.

"Take it." Bucky gestured with the gun. Steve reluctantly took it, giving Bucky a look that told Bucky he knew exactly _why_ Bucky wanted him to have it. "You don't even have the shield," he said to Steve, flashing Sam a look of disapproval.

"Okay one, warn a guy next time, and two, don't look at me," Sam said in response to the look. "I tried. You might have noticed he can be a bit stubborn at times." For the second time Sam put away his weapon in Bucky's presence. For the second time Bucky thought it was a bad idea.

"It's hard to stay incognito with the shield," Steve pointed out. He smiled briefly when Sam nodded to concede the point. His eyes returned to Bucky, and he measured the distance between them, then stepped forward slowly. 

Bucky watched him, heart hammering in his ears, very aware of Sam's alert gaze, of the gun in Steve's hand, and they helped him hold his ground.  Steve raised his empty hand, and then stopped, looking questioningly at Bucky. Bucky swallowed—wanting it, wanting to pull away—then nodded, a quick, sharp, jerk of his head.

When Steve's hand gently closed around his shoulder he locked himself down, fighting the urge to lash out. Steve's thumb brushed across his collarbone, and he forced himself to settle under the touch, found himself calming, heart slowing, when Steve's quiet voice washed over him. "It's time to come home."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :). If you want to read _No Such Thing as Fighting Dirty_ , it starts around ten months after the end of _Amends_.


End file.
